Engineering Design Workshop 2026: Day 16-Scrum meeting, Documentation, ,Project Work

Chris:

With only three days left in the program, it is essential for teams to begin preparing their final presentations. Students should start putting together slides and compiling photos immediately. If teams forgot to take pictures during the early stages of their prototypes, they should ask their mentors if they captured any useful photos to include.

Proper documentation of code, early sketches, and other project materials is just as important as photos and videos. This ensures that future students who want to build similar projects, such as a prosthetic bird wing or stargazing glasses, can look back and reference this work. Teams need to start thinking about how they are storing all of their data so that it can be easily accessed in the future.

To facilitate problem-solving across all groups, the teams will participate in a quick, live scrum session. Each team has sixty seconds to discuss among themselves and then share out loud what they are currently working on and what technological challenges they are worried about. This practice, similar to what mentors do in their meetings, allows everyone to hear each other's problems because someone from a different team might be able to offer unexpected help.

Team SMUR Radio is currently focusing on making the structure of their radios capable of movement. They are closely monitoring their progress and plan to test their systems again soon. The speaker noted that getting the radios to move around within the next three days will be an exciting challenge.

Team Starglasses is working with a Raspberry Pi but is facing compatibility issues because their projector is older than the Pi. These hardware conflicts sometimes cause software issues as well. The team plans to spend about two days trying to make it work; if unsuccessful, they have a fully completed and paid-for backup plan ready to go, which the speaker highly praised.

Team Robo Dog is dedicating their remaining time to improving their project's stability. The speaker also pointed out that the team still has a significant amount of manufacturing left to complete before the deadline.

Team Angel Wings is most concerned about successfully moving the upper joints of their wings in the next three days. While they have had great success moving the lower joints, they compared the upper joints to moving a shoulder, which is significantly more difficult than moving a hand.

Team Rocket Goat is primarily worried about their project's legs breaking. The speaker also asked them whether they have decided to focus on using balloons or sliding to achieve a landing, noting that the team seems fully committed to making their primary plan work.

Team Grabber is building a case for their electrical components and working to improve their controller design. Their biggest worry is a laggy control system that causes the arm movement to pause during travel. The team is unsure if the problem stems from the embedded controls, a wiring issue, or a general skill issue.

As the deadline approaches, students are highly encouraged to share their expertise to help other teams overcome technical hurdles. Whether it involves fixing a Raspberry Pi connection, troubleshooting a laggy controller, or sharing ideas between teams building ground-based robotic animals, cross-team collaboration can significantly speed up progress. Students should take a few minutes to talk to other groups and see if their specific skills can be useful.